Methods, Circuits, Devices, Systems &amp; Associated Computer Executable Code for Driver Decision Support

ABSTRACT

The present invention includes methods, circuits, devices, systems and associated computer executable code for providing driver decision making support. According to some embodiments, there may be provided a driver decision support system, which may generate action recommendations to a commercial driver, such as a taxi driver, a cab driver, a limo driver or any other kind of driver who picks up and transports passengers or cargo on an ad hoc (or otherwise flexible/uncertain) basis.

PRIORITY CLAIMS

This application is a continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 14/926,016 filed Oct. 29, 2017, by the inventors of the present application. U.S. Ser. No. 14/926,016 claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/077,761 filed on Nov. 10, 2014, by the inventors of the present invention and titled “Decision Support System for Drivers and Fleets of Car Services”; each of the aforementioned applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to the field of mobile communication devices. More specifically the present invention relates to methods, circuits, devices, systems and associated computer executable code for providing driver decision making support.

BACKGROUND

Drivers of car services such as Taxis, Black cars, Limos and transportation networks (such as Uber™, Lyft™ and Sidecar™ drivers) spend almost half their time driving a vacant car (see e.g. NYC 2014 taxicab factbook). These miles are referred to as “dead miles” and cost the driver (lost income, waste of fuel), the passengers (wasted wait time) and society (unnecessary road congestion and pollution). During this time, drivers typically face a slew of options and must make many different decisions on a typical day. For example, each time they drop-off a passenger, they have many options on what to do next. They mostly make these decisions based on their intuition and past experience. Thus, improving this decision making process will result in increased utilization/profitability of drivers and car service fleets as well as mitigation of the problems described above.

Example: a NYC yellow cab driver can select several different routes to cruise searching for the next passenger, or can alternatively drive to a nearby taxi station. Another type of driver, such as one who drives in a transportation network (such as an UberX™ driver driving with Uber's™ mobile application), which works in a system which matches supply and demand based on proximity of drivers to passengers, can select a standpoint in which he believes he has a high chance of getting the next passenger as soon as possible. He may sometimes prefer a distant point with a high probability of getting a passenger over a closer point which he believes is less probable of getting a passenger soon. Such a driver has plenty of inputs available which provide information he can rely on in his decisions, and which are used in order to decide on all of these questions, eventually, however, the decision he makes is largely based on intuition and not on a true analysis of the situation.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

Some car service companies provide their drivers with notifications of areas in which demand appears to exceed supply (such as Uber's™ surge pricing driver notification), thus signaling drivers to prefer a location in which they are more likely to catch a passenger soon. This is done based on real time knowledge of passengers requesting drivers in areas in which the company cannot match all demand by available supply.

Some other companies (such as Gett™) display on a map locations of previous collected passengers in order to hint towards location which are more likely to gain a short wait for the driver of an empty cab.

In both cases the companies only show information and signals which can help the driver in decision making but do not provide detailed suggestions of what to do next in order to optimize the driver's performance and decision making process.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention includes methods, circuits, devices, systems and associated computer executable code for providing driver decision making support. According to some embodiments, there may be provided a driver decision support system (hereinafter also referred to as a “DDSS”) which may generate action recommendations to a commercial driver, such as a taxi driver, a cab driver, a limo driver or any other kind of driver who picks up and transports passengers or cargo on an ad hoc (or otherwise flexible/uncertain) basis (hereinafter collectively referred to as: “Cdrivers”).

The recommendation system may generate recommendations with regard to actions a Cdriver should take or avoid based on one or more factors including: (1) one or more optimization parameters defined by a Cdriver/user, pre-programmed or defined by a relevant profile indicating which operational parameter(s) (e.g. maximize Cdriver personal profit, maximize fleet profit, minimize average passenger wait time, etc.) the Cdriver would like a recommendation optimized to and/or weights to assign different operational parameters; (2) real-time traffic feeds for one or more optional operating territories; (3) a traffic flow model for each of the one or more optional operating territories; and/or (4) one or more probabilistic transportation supply and/or demand model(s) which may predict demand and/or supply for different types of transportation (e.g. passenger, cargo, package, etc.), optionally updated and/or modified to account for the time of day and/or day of the week and/or relevant data received from external sources (e.g. local event data, local third party driver service data, weather forecasts, road congestion, etc.). According to some embodiments, the one or more probabilistic transportation demand models may also predict likely destinations for passengers or cargo picked up from specific geographic locations during specific times of day and/or the expected profit the driver will gain as well as the expected time of travel and driver costs (e.g. fuel, tolls, etc.).

According to some embodiments, a driver decision support system may be constructed according to a server/client architecture, whereby an application running on a wireless client device carried by a Cdriver/user may communicate over a mobile communication network with a recommendation engine running on one or more servers.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may comprise one or more client applications residing on mobile communication devices intended to be carried by Cdrivers or in their vehicles. The DDSS client applications may communicate over a communication network with one or more DDSS servers.

It should be understood that some or all the functions described herein as performed by a DDSS server may alternatively be performed by a DDSS client application and vice-versa. In other words, the division of functionalities between DDSS client applications and DDSS servers described herein is but one set of possible implementations of the present invention, and any other division of functionalities between the two is equally possible based on logistic considerations (e.g. the nature of the communication network, the nature of the mobile devices and so on). Equally, a mixture of embodiments is possible, such that some mobile devices perform more functionalities and others rely more on functionalities performed at the servers. Any division of functionalities between the two is possible and should be considered within the scope of the present description.

According to some embodiments, DDSS servers (and/or client applications) may receive data relating to the driver decision making analysis they perform from external sources, proprietary or third party services. Such information may include:

-   -   a. Traffic reports (e.g. live traffic reports, user based         traffic information, MTA reports, road segment level traffic         speed data, etc.);     -   b. Weather reports, including live weather reports and/or         weather forecasts;     -   c. Event/news reports (e.g. police reports, news feeds, event         listings, accident reports, etc);     -   d. Cdriver related information, such as reports and/or alerts         from commercial driving services (e.g. Uber™ surge pricing         driver notification, Gett™ collection maps, etc.); and/or     -   e. Any other relevant information available.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may include a recommendation engine (residing on a DDSS server and/or a DDSS client application) designed to solve one or more optimization problems and produce one or more action recommendations for one or more Cdrivers, based on their current location, other relevant considerations and desired/defined optimization criteria/considerations.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may further include one or more modeling units designed to create, maintain and update one or more models of factors relevant to the desired action recommendations. Such modelling units may include:

-   -   a. A Traffic Flow Modeler designed to create models of traffic         flow in one or more relevant areas. A traffic flow modeler may         receive live traffic updates and event/accident reports from         exterior sources. A traffic flow modeler may use the live data         to create models of current and future traffic flow in each of         the one or more relevant areas. A traffic flow modeler may also         include relevant traffic flow data/models relating to each of         the areas in question and historic data which may be used for         pattern learning. A traffic flow modeler may further include         dynamic updating and refinement based on monitoring and pattern         detection within the live traffic feeds and incident/accident         detection and related consequence analysis;     -   b. A Cdriver Supply Vs. Demand modeler which may be designed to         create models of supply vs. demand of Cdrivers in one or more         areas and/or subareas, current and/or future. A Cdriver Supply         Vs. Demand modeler may include a Cdriver demand modeler and a         Cdriver supply modeler, each of which may collect the relevant         data from exterior sources and create the relevant model to then         be compared to its counterpart to create a supply vs. demand         model. According to some embodiments, such demand/supply models         may also be built/tuned using historical passenger         pickup/dropoff locations and/or historical GPS routes of vacant         and occupied trips. Alternatively, the supply and demand models         may be combined into a single component. This component may be         based directly on historical data observations and/or based on a         probabilistic model (with parameters tuned using historical         data) and may estimate the probability of a passenger pickup in         each location/time given the state and/or all discussed external         signals.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may include graphic processing circuitry functionally associated with a rendering module, adapted to derive and render graphic representations of: data collected by the DDSS, analysis and models derived by the DDSS from collected data and/or recommendations/conclusions derived by the DDSS from the data and/or models and analysis. According to some embodiments, graphic representations may include maps illustrating the data collected by the DDSS, analysis and models derived by the DDSS from collected data and/or recommendations/conclusions derived by the DDSS.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may further include a Cdriver interface and/or fleet manager interface designed to allow the Cdriver and/or fleet manager to input one or more desired recommendation criteria/preferences/priorities by which to generate recommendations. Such an interface may further include options for the Cdriver and/or fleet manager to control operation and display of the DDSS (e.g. select display format).

According to some further embodiments of the present invention, the principles of DDSS as described herein may be implemented for non-commercial drivers, with the relevant modifications. Accordingly, there may be provided DDSS adapted to provide recommendations to non-commercial drivers, based on one or more optimization criteria relating to non-commercial drivers, including: driving time, driving distance, traffic avoidance, fuel consumption, etc.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification. The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation, together with objects, features, and advantages thereof, may best be understood by reference to the following detailed description when read with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1: is a block diagram of an exemplary DDSS, in accordance with some embodiments of the present invention; and

FIG. 2: is a flowchart including steps of operation of an exemplary DDSS, in accordance with some embodiments of the present invention;

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.

It should be understood that the accompanying drawings are presented solely to elucidate the following detailed description, are therefore, exemplary in nature and do not include all the possible permutations of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components and circuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the present invention.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the following discussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specification discussions utilizing terms such as “processing”, “computing”, “calculating”, “determining”, or the like, refer to the action and/or processes of a computer or computing system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented as physical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system's registers and/or memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices. The term server may refer to a single server or to a functionally associated cluster of servers.

Embodiments of the present invention may include apparatuses for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the desired purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, memory cards (for example SD card), SIM cards, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) electrically programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), electrically erasable and programmable read only memories (EEPROMs), magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and capable of being coupled to a computer system bus.

The processes and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer, communication device or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the desired method. The desired structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below. In addition, embodiments of the present invention are not described with reference to any particular programming language or markup language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages or techniques may be used to implement the teachings of the inventions as described herein.

Functions, operations, components and/or features described herein with reference to one or more embodiments, may be combined with, or may be utilized in combination with, one or more other functions, operations, components and/or features described herein with reference to one or more other embodiments, or vice versa.

The present invention includes methods, circuits, devices, systems and associated computer executable code for providing driver decision making support. According to some embodiments, there may be provided a DDSS (see FIG. 1) which may generate action recommendations to a commercial driver, such as a taxi driver, a cab driver, a limo driver or any other kind of driver who picks up and transports passengers or cargo on an ad hoc (or otherwise flexible/uncertain) basis (hereinafter collectively referred to as: “Cdrivers”).

The recommendation system may generate recommendations with regard to actions a Cdriver should take or avoid based on one or more factors including: (1) one or more optimization parameters defined by a Cdriver/user, pre-programmed or defined by a relevant profile indicating which operational parameter(s) (e.g. maximize Cdriver personal profit, maximize fleet profit, minimize average passenger wait time, a combination of the above, etc.) the Cdriver would like a recommendation optimized to and/or weights to assign different operational parameters; (2) real-time traffic feeds for one or more optional operating territories; (3) a traffic flow model for each of the one or more optional operating territories; and/or (4) one or more probabilistic transportation supply and/or demand model(s) which may predict demand and/or supply for different types of transportation (e.g. passenger, cargo, package, etc.), optionally updated and/or modified to account for the time of day and/or day of the week and/or relevant data received from external sources (e.g. local event data, local third party driver service data, weather forecasts, etc.).

According to some embodiments, the one or more probabilistic transportation demand/supply models may also predict likely destinations for passengers or cargo picked up from specific geographic locations during specific times of day and/or the expected profit the driver will gain as well as the expected time of travel and driver costs (e.g. fuel, tolls, etc.). According to some embodiments, the one or more probabilistic transportation demand/supply models may also predict the expected profit the driver will gain from pickups based on several criteria, such as: time of day, day of week, pickup location, weather, congestion, etc.

According to some embodiments, the one or more probabilistic transportation demand models may also predict costs associated with trips such as the expected time of travel and operating costs such as fuel, tolls, etc.

According to some embodiments, a driver decision support system may be constructed according to a server/client architecture, whereby an application running on a wireless client device carried by a Cdriver/user may communicate over a mobile communication network with a recommendation engine running on one or more servers. According to some embodiments, DDSS servers may include backend servers and/or frontend servers, both of which may be dedicated servers and/or cloud based computing infrastructures.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may comprise one or more client applications residing on mobile communication devices intended to be carried by Cdrivers or in their vehicles (e.g. smartphone, tablet, laptop, car media system/screen, a dedicated device, etc.). The DDSS client applications may communicate over a communication network with one or more DDSS servers.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may superimpose recommendations to drivers on a map which may be specific to each driver based on a solution to the optimization problem defined by the current optimization criterion as well as: his location, the location of other drivers, the expected locations of potential future passengers and the current conditions (such as current road congestion and weather which may impact both demand and supply). A DDSS may show the driver the best action, route, combination of actions, etc. (or several potential alternatives ranked or scored by several relevant metrics such as expected profit or expected time till pickup of next passenger) to perform at each moment. Such recommendations may be updated continuously according to the selections of the driver. According to some embodiments, recommendations may be presented to the driver when he is not driving a passenger and he has a choice between many different options such as: standing at a taxi stop to wait for passengers, standing at a location in which he is likely to be selected by an e-hail dispatch system such as Uber™ or Gett™ as the nearest driver or as a close enough driver—i.e. in systems which use proximity based dispatch (in this case the preference may be to stand in a location which is very likely to be close to an expected future passenger, possibly also considering available supply) or any other dispatch system based on proximity (location based service), cruising one of exponentially many different routes, searching for hailing passengers, any combination of the above, going off for a break or finishing the shift.

According to some embodiments, DDSS servers (and/or client applications) may receive data relating to the driver decision making analysis they perform from external sources, proprietary or third party services. Such information may include:

-   -   a. Traffic reports (e.g. live traffic reports, user based         traffic information, MTA reports, etc.);     -   b. Weather reports, including live weather reports and/or         weather forecasts;     -   c. Event/news reports (e.g. police reports, news feeds, event         listings, accident reports, airport takeoffs/landings, etc);     -   d. Cdriver related information, such as reports and/or alerts         from commercial driving services (e.g. Uber™ surge pricing         driver notification, Gett™ collection maps, etc.); and/or     -   e. Locations of other Cdrivers, either belonging to the same         fleet and/or other fleets;     -   f. Any other relevant information available.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may include a recommendation engine (residing on a DDSS server and/or a DDSS client application) designed to solve one or more optimization problems and produce one or more action recommendations for one or more Cdrivers, based on their current location, other relevant considerations and desired/defined optimization criteria/considerations.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may include a recommendation engine (residing on a DDSS server and/or a DDSS client application) designed to solve action recommendations that maximize for one or more Cdrivers the probability of picking up a passenger with a target destination in a selected region and a selected time selected by the driver.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may further include one or more modeling units designed to create, maintain and update one or more models of factors relevant to the desired action recommendations. Such modelling units may include:

-   -   a. A Traffic Flow Modeler designed to create models of traffic         flow in one or more relevant areas. A traffic flow modeler may         model at the regional level or at the road segment level         traffic. A traffic flow modeler may receive live traffic updates         and event/accident reports from exterior sources. A traffic flow         modeler may use the live data to create models of current and         future traffic flow in each of the one or more relevant areas. A         traffic flow modeler may also include relevant traffic flow         data/models relating to each of the areas in question and         historic data which may be used for pattern learning. A traffic         flow modeler may further include dynamic updating and refinement         based on monitoring and pattern detection within the live         traffic feeds and incident/accident detection and related         consequence analysis;     -   b. A Cdriver Supply Vs. Demand modeler which may be designed to         create models of supply vs. demand of Cdrivers in one or more         areas and/or subareas, current and/or future. A Cdriver Supply         Vs. Demand modeler may include a Cdriver demand modeler and a         Cdriver supply modeler, each of which may collect the relevant         data from exterior sources and create the relevant model to then         be compared to its counterpart to create a supply vs. demand         model. According to some embodiments, such demand/supply models         may also be built/tuned using historical passenger         pickup/dropoff locations and/or historical GPS routes of vacant         and occupied trips. In such models the demand and supply may be         modeled separately and/or modeled as a demand/supply ratio         combined. Furthermore, separate models (or modifications of         models) may be provided based on whether the system is designed         for drivers picking up hailing passengers, e-hailing passengers,         or both types of passengers

According to some embodiments, modeling units of a DDSS may reside on backend servers and may run batch processes in which for each city/region a model is being learned. According to some embodiments, one or more cities/areas may be combined, dependent on the size of the area in which the driver/fleet works as well as the amount of data related to the region available. Refer to FIG. 2 for an overview of such a city model learning flow. Such a city model may be based on a geographical information system (GIS) which may include a vectorial map. Such a model may answer queries such as:

-   -   a. city topology—how a car can drive from each location to any         other location in the region;     -   b. typical driving time and conditions from any location in the         region to any other location, given current day and hour,         weather, traffic conditions and any other related information         (such as special events, holidays, etc.). This information could         be learned using machine learning models from historical data         (e.g. by a supervised classifier/regressor which is trained with         historical drive times under different conditions between         different points), may be learned by the DDSS based on data         collected by the client applications during the work of the         associated Cdrivers, and/or may be provided by a service         provider or a custom commercial product; and/or     -   c. what is the predicted probability of a passenger interested         in a Cdriver service being present in a given street segment at         a given day/hour under current conditions (such as weather,         traffic, events being held or businesses density in a given         location). This data may be learned from historical passenger         data, which may be public data (such as in NYC), may be learned         by the DDSS based on data collected by the client applications         during the work of the associated Cdrivers, and/or private data         collected by private drivers or car service companies.         Alternatively, it may be calculated from data driven         probabilistic models (e.g. classical demand supply models from         Queueing theory) based on parameters learned from historical         data, or tuned by hand. A different model may be learned for         hailing passengers (passengers stopping a cab on the road or in         taxi stands) and e-hailing passengers (passengers using mobile         applications such as Gett™ or Uber's™ mobile app to order a         driver). See further details on learning a passenger model below         and in FIG. 2.

According to some embodiments, learning a city model may include using GPS data of Cdrivers operating in the region of interest and, given a vector map of the city represented as a graph, expected time of driving from any point A to any point B in the region can be determined by using a shortest path algorithm over learned travel time of each graph edge and/or by learning, using historical data, the travel time between any two nodes of the graph, or areas in the region of interest, directly.

According to some embodiments, learning a passenger model may include estimating the probability that a Cdriver in a given situation (i.e. at a given location under given circumstances) and given a specific action (such as standing in a specific spot or cruising a specific road segment) will pick up a new passenger. Using historical pickup and dropoff details of passengers who were taken in the past, standard supervised learning algorithms may be used, such as nearest neighbors, logistic regression, artificial neural networks or support vector machines (or any other Machine Learning algorithm), to model the probability of a Cdriver picking up a passenger, on a specific route/location, given current conditions such as time of day, day of week, traffic, weather, probabilistic supply/demand models and/or any other relevant data, which may be evaluated using standard feature engineering and cross validation techniques. This may be done in relation to both passenger data collected from hailing passengers (picked up from the street or from dedicated pickup points such as taxi stands) as well as for passenger e-hailing a driver using a transportation network such as Gett™ or Uber™ which match passengers to close drivers. In both cases, taking into account the current supply (density of other drivers in the area) if accessible, such as in the case where a fleet with many Cdrivers knows the exact location of all of it's Cdrivers, may improve the estimation of the probability that taking a specific action in a given situation will lead the driver to find a new passenger. Alternatively or in addition to the above, a monte carlo simulation using historical data may be used in a simulated environment to estimate these probabilities. An example of the results of a supply vs. demand model can be seen in FIG. 4. As can be seen, in this example, the model results in a map of the city, wherein each location is color coded to represent the probability of finding a fare at that location.

According to some embodiments, building a city graph and associated passenger demand module may include:

-   -   a. representing the graph (“city graph”) with a sparse adjacency         matrix, the graph may be a directed graph wherein each node in         the graph represents a city junction (or a sub-junction to take         into account turn restrictions which require “splitting”         junctions), and an edge between 2 nodes exists if a street         connects those two junctions (the nodes and edges can be         extracted from any source (e.g. Openstreetmap.com™), as shown in         FIG. 3;     -   b. assigning trips to edges, wherein a trip is assigned to any         edge within a defined distance of the pickup site (i.e. a single         trip may be assigned to more than one edge);     -   c. For learning e-hailing demand models, each pickup may be         associated with all edges that fall within the dispatch radius.         According to further embodiments, edges may receive a weighted         score based on their distance from the pickup spot (the closer         they are, the higher their weight is);     -   d. This can be performed for all hours and/or each edge may be         split into different time slices and learn the supply and/or         demand in each edge as a function of time or any other parameter         used (such as traffic, weather, events, etc.);     -   e. standard regression models may be used, using any         tempo-spatial feature representation, to learn models for:         -   i. Pickup probability—probability of a pickup in a             location/time, considering all relevant data available;         -   ii. Demand—number of passengers waiting for a pickup at a             location/time, considering all relevant data available;         -   iii. Supply—number of competing cars relevant in an             area/edge/time, considering all relevant data available;         -   iv. Dropoffs—distribution of dropoffs given a pickup             location/time of day, considering all relevant data             available;         -   v. Travel time—expected travel time between any two             locations as a function of time, considering all relevant             data available; and/or         -   vi. Trip price—expected amount of money paid by a passenger             for a trip between any two locations as a function of time             (including tips and extras), as well as associated costs             (such as tolls and gas price), considering all relevant data             available.     -   f. models may be modified and/or tuned to account for further         factors: such as weather, traffic, events, etc.

According to some embodiments, DDSS backend servers, DDSS front end servers and/or DDSS client applications may also solve optimization problems to generate recommendations for Cdrivers. Each feasible [location, action] tuple in the region may be scored by a value function combining some or all of the models discussed. The actions associated with each location which are being scored may be any possible action by a Cdriver, e.g. example: cruising to another location (adjacent nodes in the city graph), standing in place, cruising to a nearby taxi stand, travelling to another area, etc. Such a scoring function may be used to select the best next action or the best set of actions the driver should take to optimize his expected future profits and/or any other criterion selected by the driver or by the fleet to guide optimization. This can be done using many different optimization methods such as greedy selection, approximate or exact dynamic programming algorithms such as described in the reinforcement learning literature: value iteration, policy iteration or TD-Learning, or with classical artificial intelligence algorithms used for solving planning problems under uncertainty (or in probabilistic models). The algorithms may be model based (i.e. the learned city and Cdriver demand vs. supply models may be used explicitly to solve the optimization problem) or model-free (the value of states and actions is learned directly without modeling of the state-action transition distributions such as with the well known TD-Learning or TD-Lambda algorithms). See more details for solving the optimization problem below.

A simplistic example of a value function which could be calculated by value iteration may be:

Let s be the location in the city, a the action available for drivers being examined (e.g. traversal of a street, standing in a specific location etc.), P_(pickup)(s,t,a) the probability of picking up a passenger while performing action a at location s at time t, P_(Dropoff)(s,t,) the distribution of dropoff for pickups at location s at time t, Reward(s,t) the expected reward of picking up a passenger at location s at time t, T(s,a,s′) be the time of traversing from s to s, starting at t,s(a) the deterministic outcome state of taking action a at state s, then:

V(s,t)=max_(a) [P _(pickup)(s,t,a)*Reward(s,t)+Σ_(s′) P _(Dropoff)(s,t,s′)*V(s′,t+T(s,t,s′))+(1−P _(Pickup)(s,t,a))*V(s(a),t+T(s,t,s(a)))]

Using this exemplary value function, model optimal actions for each state and time can be derived.

According to further embodiments, the DDSS backend servers, DDSS front end servers and/or DDSS client applications may incorporate additional information into the decision making process. These could be external inputs such as real time traffic, current weather and weather forecasts as well as the current locations of other cars from the same fleet or from other fleets who share their location publicly. The incorporation of this information can be done by injecting this information into the optimization problem by using heuristics (e.g. penalizing pickup points in which the number of current drivers seems to be higher than the normal) and/or by increasing the size of the state space and learning the effect of actions under the different conditions separately.

According to some embodiments, the DDSS may generate recommendations with regard to actions a Cdriver should take or avoid based on one or more optimization parameters defined by a Cdriver/user, pre-programmed or defined by a relevant profile indicating which operational parameter(s) (e.g. maximize Cdriver personal profit, maximize fleet profit, minimize average passenger wait time, maximizing the probability a driver arrives close to a selected destination at a selected time etc.) the user would like a recommendation optimized to and/or weights to assign different operational parameters, including:

-   -   a. Price or Profit of next trip;     -   b. Profit per time period;     -   c. Preference of type of fare (e.g. airport trips,         longer/shorter trips, etc.)     -   d. Locational preferences;     -   e. Route type preferences (e.g. highway, residential, traffic         avoidance, etc)     -   f. Preferred fare search type (e.g. cruising, standing, airport,         taxi stations)     -   g. Any other relevant optimization parameter.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may be further adapted to generate recommendations/strategies designed to increase the likelihood the driver will end up at a certain pre-defined location at a certain time. For example, a DDSS system may generate recommendations most likely to leave the Cdriver near his house at the end of a shift. Such optimization criteria may be factored in conjunction with other optimization considerations, at different possible weights, which may be adjustable. For example, two Cdrivers may set their respective DDSS systems to leave them near home at 18:00, or near the airport during day hours, etc. One of them, however, may set his system such that it will make sure to be near home at 18:00 even at the expense of reducing the likelihood of a profitable fare at 17:00 by 40%, whereas the other may decide that he would prefer not to reduce the likelihood of a profitable fare by more than 10% in order to arrive near home at 18:00.

According to some embodiments, the DDSS may generate recommendations with regard to actions a Cdriver should take or avoid also based on the Cdriver's current location and a traffic flow model for each of the one or more optional operating territories, which may be generated based on real-time traffic feeds for one or more optional operating territories. According to further embodiments, real time traffic feeds for an area may be analyzed based on area specific traffic models of traffic in the specific area. These area specific models may be generated based on:

-   -   a. historic traffic feeds of the area and their analysis,     -   b. live traffic data relating to the area retrieved from drivers         using the DDSS or another application collecting locational         data;     -   c. live traffic data relating to the area retrieved from third         parties (e.g. Google Maps™),     -   d. traffic flow models and feeds of neighboring areas,     -   e. analysis of area specific parameters (e.g. road size,         location of traffic lights, schools, etc.);     -   f. events and accidents, in the area or neighboring areas;     -   g. any other traffic related data available.

According to some embodiments, a traffic flow modeler may be implemented also using a combination of regression models (trained over historical trips) and real time traffic data combined with a Dijkstra algorithm over the city graph described above wherein weights of the edges are assigned according to the expected trip time in each edge.

According to some embodiments, the DDSS may generate recommendations with regard to actions a Cdriver should take or avoid also based on one or more probabilistic transportation supply vs. demand models which may predict demand and/or supply for different types of transportation (e.g. passenger, cargo, package, etc.). According to some embodiments, demand and/or supply models for different types of transportation may be constructed, modified, segmented and/or filtered by:

-   -   a. Price or Profit of next trip;     -   b. Preference of type of fare (e.g. airport trips,         longer/shorter trips, etc.)     -   c. Locational preferences;     -   d. Time of day     -   e. Day of the week     -   f. Time of year     -   g. E-hail/street pickup         Accordingly, supply vs. demand models may be tailored for         particular circumstances by analyzing circumstance specific data         (e.g. demand models for long rides on a rainy Tuesday afternoon         in july, based on data from afternoons in the last 3 july's, as         well as data from all rainy days as compared to other days to         model the effect of the rain). According to some embodiments,         circumstance specific models may be cross analyzed to simulate a         particular set of circumstances at a particular point in time.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may include front end servers (see FIG. 1), which interact with DDSS backend servers and DDSS client applications. Such frontend and/or backend servers may:

-   -   a. serve queries which are generated by the mobile devices and         sent to the front end servers (e.g. over a cellular network or         any available internet connection which delivers the driver's         location and other metadata);     -   b. selects for a given driver that queries the system, different         possible actions to take based on his location and current real         time conditions such as road congestion, weather, real time         demand and supply of passengers and drivers;     -   c. score these different actions and factor the specific         criterion of optimization for the specific Cdriver, which could         be one that maximizes drivers personal profits, fleet overall         performance, or passenger focused criterions such as average         passenger waiting time or maximizing the probability of arrival         at a requested destination at a certain time. The scoring of the         different actions may be taken from the value function learned         for different actions under different system conditions and may         be delivered to each mobile device as suggested orders for the         given Cdriver.

According to some embodiments, solving the above mentioned optimization problems in order to generate Cdriver recommendations may include a process built according to the following principles: Given: (1) a graph describing a city/region, where each node of the graph resembles a physical location (such as a junction, a location of interest or a potential car/taxi standpoint) and edges connecting the nodes represent possible routes between adjacent nodes, as shown in FIG. 3 and (2) a probabilistic model that factors one or more of the following: time of day, day of week, weather, traffic conditions, special events and models relating to both the travel time between nodes connected by edges (or by different routes) as well as the probability that an available Cdriver will encounter a passenger while traversing a specific route associated with an edge in the graph; selecting the optimal action for a Cdriver in a given location may be done using dynamic programming, or approximate dynamic programming as known in the art and described, for example, in the well known reinforcement learning literature. These algorithms may be used to valuate [state, action] tuples wherein, for example, a state may be an enumeration over locations in the city (nodes or edges in the graph), a time of day, a day of the week, etc. and the actions may be selections available for the driver (drive to an adjacent node/edge in the graph, stand in a potential stand point, etc). Alternatively, in the event that the model describing the transition between states is known or well approximated, one can set a value function dependent on the states and select the action that maximizes the expected value of the next state, which are equivalent to optional Cdriver actions given a state which describes a combination of the Cdriver's location and the current conditions (such as time of day, day of week, current traffic and weather). As a reward function (which is typically used in reinforcement learning), the actual payments may be logged in the Cdriver accounting logs and/or the expected payments as a function of distance traveled or time spent driving with/without a passenger could be easily estimated (including costs such as fuel) using real market information (e.g. tariff data). It is important to notice that these dynamic programming models naturally take into account future states and future expected profits and may not be greedy algorithms. For example, using dynamic programming, optimal action problem can be solved by calculating the expected profit of a driver over a fixed (or diminishing) horizon for each of the optional actions at a given moment. The expected value of a driver doing action A at time T may equal the expected immediate reward of doing action A at time T (as calculated from the passenger pickup probability model and expected profit model) plus the expected value of the values of the future states (weighted with the transition probabilities of the different future states and perhaps discounted over time in a diminishing horizon model).

According to further embodiments, the DDSS described herein may be used as part of an “artificial intelligence” or other form of computerized decision making system for autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles/taxis. Such a system may allow non-professional drivers or driverless cars to act as Cdrivers by using the DDSS as a navigation planning system for the vehicle at the periods of time in which a passenger (or cargo) would like to sell transportation services.

According to some embodiments, surge pricing data (from external sources, other DDSS and/or the DDSS itself) may be fed into the models described herein and factored into the system recommendations and models.

According to some embodiments, DDSS may be used in conjunction by many drivers of a fleet and/or multiple fleets. Such DDSS may interact, share data and may further have a degree of central control or coordinated recommendations, such that the expected actions of other Cdrivers can be taken into account when performing recommendations. For example, when 10 Cdrivers are currently headed to a specific neighborhood, the 11^(th) driver may be recommended to go elsewhere, even if demand is currently relatively high in that area. Similarly, a driver may be sent to a remote area, even if demand there is very low, to make sure there is still service in that area if no other Cdrivers are close.

According to some embodiments, another optimization problem solution may be implemented in relation to e-hailing, in addition, combined with or instead of optimization problem solutions relating to regular hailing (street pickups). Optimization problem solutions relating to e-hailing may include selection of optimal Cdriver waiting/standing points for e-hailing. Such processes may include one or more processes built according to the following principles: Given a continuous road segment and/or a large selection of junctions or car stand points (either manually created and/or automatically mined from pickup/dropoff or full GPS tracks of Cdrivers), selection of nodes of our graph model (the possible actions which are the set from which driver routes and stand points are selected) may be optimized by leveraging historical passenger pickup data to find the best possible stand/wait points (out of the infinite large number of options) as follows: for each potential location in the city (this may be done exhaustively using cloud computing, e.g. with mapreduce wherein optimization is done on a discrete set when enough computation power is available and/or by one or more gradient descent algorithms over continuous search spaces) a “score” of the potential point is estimated using one of the following methods (wherein the score tries to estimate the likelihood that a Cdriver will be called to pickup a hailing passenger, in each location under different conditions of supply, demand and/or any other relevant parameter):

-   -   1) the selection of these standpoints can be done by estimation         of the probability that the Cdriver will be e-hailed in each         point being considered. The top points in each area could then         be selected. The probability of a pickup may be the integral of         probabilities of each area taken from a Cdriver supply vs.         demand model, such as described herein, wherein only areas         within the radius of effective e-hailing being used by the         transportation network should be considered in this integral and         while locations of other Cdrivers within the same network should         also be considered by dividing the probabilities of specific         nodes which are being “shared” by more than one potential         Cdriver. This can be done by first building a predictive model         that estimates passenger pickup probabilities per area (as         described in the Cdriver supply vs. demand model)     -   2) alternatively (or in combination with (1)), actual historical         data may be used and/or a simulation, possibly using a         Monte-Carlo simulation and/or other probabilistic generative         models that allow running many simulations and estimating the         score of each point, e.g. by running over perturbations of the         history (such as in bootstrap sampling) of pickups and histories         of other Cdrivers competing with the given Cdriver to be the         closest Cdriver to the e-hailer, and comparing the average wait         time of a driver in each location under different conditions, or         the expected profit of the driver conditioned on waiting in         different locations and a limited horizon.     -   3) a similar approach may be combined in which in real time the         pickup probability is estimated in several candidate locations         using real time supply and demand data.         The same method described here can also be performed using the         profits of the drivers and the dropoffs in order to take into         account in addition to the passenger pickup probabilities also         expected (perhaps discounted) profits. In addition, in an         e-hailing setting it is possible to model the expected pickup         time of a passenger in each location/state in order to account         for that in the value function (cost of time wasted until         pickup).

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may include graphic processing circuitry functionally associated with a rendering module, adapted to derive and render graphic representations of: data collected by the DDSS, analysis and models derived by the DDSS from collected data and/or recommendations/conclusions derived by the DDSS from the data and/or models and analysis. According to some embodiments, graphic representations may include maps illustrating the data collected by the DDSS, analysis and models derived by the DDSS from collected data and/or recommendations/conclusions derived by the DDSS. For example, a DDSS client application may render upon a mobile device with which it is associated a map of the drivers current location and/or nearby area, including recommendations of driving directions or locations to stand at for optimal performance. The rendered display may further include expected wait times for next passenger (or some statistics of that distribution), expected profit for the next ride/hour in local currency, a star-rating or any other information related to the actions suggested by the DDSS. An example of such a display is presented in FIG. 5. As can be seen, in this exemplary display a Cdriver can see a map of the local area, including indications of locations of other drivers and an indication of the recommended action for the Driver: “stand at Dore St.”. The map also includes an indication of the proper route to reach the desired location.

According to some embodiments, a DDSS may further include a Cdriver interface and/or fleet manager interface designed to allow the Cdriver and/or fleet manager to input one or more desired recommendation criteria/preferences/priorities by which to generate recommendations. Such an interface may further include options for the Cdriver and/or fleet manager to control operation and display of the DDSS (e.g. select display format).

The present invention can be practiced by employing conventional tools, methodology and components. Accordingly, the details of such tools, component and methodology are not set forth herein in detail. In the previous descriptions, numerous specific details are set forth, in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it should be recognized that the present invention might be practiced without resorting to the details specifically set forth.

In the description and claims of embodiments of the present invention, each of the words, “comprise” “include” and “have”, and forms thereof, are not necessarily limited to members in a list with which the words may be associated.

Only exemplary embodiments of the present invention and but a few examples of its versatility are shown and described in the present disclosure. It is to be understood that the present invention is capable of use in various other combinations and environments and is capable of changes or modifications within the scope of the inventive concept as expressed herein.

While certain features of the invention have been illustrated and described herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, and equivalents will now occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention. 

1. A driver decision support system comprising: a mobile computing device including a display and a driver interface adapted to receive a driver input indicating an operational parameter for optimization; a recommendation engine including processing circuitry adapted to generate a recommended driver action, optimized according to the driver indicated operational parameter, wherein the recommendation is at least partially based upon: (1) a location signal indicating a current location of the driver; (2) a live traffic feed indicating current traffic conditions within an area including the current location of the driver: (3) a traffic flow model for the area; and (4) a transportation demand model of at least the area, indicating a current demand for commercial transportation within the area; and a rendering unit adapted to render upon said display a graphic representation of the recommended driver action; wherein said traffic flow model and said transportation demand model are dynamic and intermittently updated and said transportation demand module is segmented by location.
 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the recommendation is also at least partially based on a transportation supply model of the area, indicating a current supply of commercial transportation within the area.
 3. The system according to claim 1, comprising multiple mobile computing devices including a display and a driver interface adapted to receive a user input indicating an operational parameter for optimization and wherein said recommendation engine is further adapted to generate recommended driver actions for each driver associated with a mobile device of said multiple mobile computing devices, optimized according to the user indicated operational parameter, wherein the recommendations are at least partially based upon: (1) a location signal indicating a current location of the driver; (2) a live traffic feed indicating current traffic conditions within an area including the current location of the driver; (3) a traffic flow model for the area; (4) a transportation demand model of at least the area, indicating a current demand for commercial transportation within the area; and (5) data received from other mobile devices of the multiple mobile computing devices.
 4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the recommendations are also at least partially based on a transportation supply model of the area, indicating a current supply of commercial transportation within the area.
 5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the driver indicated operational parameter is profit per shift.
 6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the driver indicated operational parameter is profit of next fare.
 7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the driver indicated operational parameter is optimizing a probability the driver will end up in a specific geographical region at a defined time.
 8. The system according to claim 3, wherein the user indicated operational parameter is profit of a fleet of commercial drivers.
 9. The system according to claim 1, wherein said recommendation engine is adapted to calculate a probability a commercial driver will be e-hailed if standing at a given location.
 10. The system according to claim 1, wherein said recommendation engine is adapted to calculate a probability a commercial driver will be street hailed at a given location or cruising a given route.
 11. The system according to claim 9, wherein said recommendation engine is also adapted to calculate, for each of a set of possible locations, a probability the commercial driver will be hailed on route to each given location, aggregate a probability of being e-hailed if standing at each given location with the probability the commercial driver will be street hailed on route to each given location and recommend an optimal location for the commercial driver to drive to considering both probabilities.
 12. A driver decision support system comprising: a recommendation engine including processing circuitry adapted to generate a recommended driver action for a commercial driver (Cdriver); wherein the recommendation is at least partially based upon: (1) a location signal indicating a current location of the driver; (2) a live traffic feed indicating current traffic conditions within an area including the current location of the driver; (3) a traffic flow model for the area; and (4) a transportation demand vs. supply model of at least the area, indicating a current demand for commercial transportation within the area in relation to a current demand for commercial transportation within the area; and a rendering unit adapted to render upon a display a graphic representation of the recommended driver action; wherein said traffic flow model and said transportation demand model are dynamic and intermittently updated and said transportation demand vs. supply module is segmented by location.
 13. The system according to claim 12, further comprising processing circuitry functionally associated with a digital memory, which digital memory contains code configured to cause a mobile computing device, including a display and a driver interface, to receive a driver input indicating an operational parameter for optimization; wherein the recommended driver action is optimized according to the driver indicated operational parameter for optimization.
 14. The system according to claim 13, wherein said recommendation is also at least partially based on data received from other mobile devices.
 15. The system according to claim 13, wherein the driver indicated operational parameter is profit per shift.
 16. The system according to claim 13, wherein the driver indicated operational parameter is profit of next fare.
 17. The system according to claim 12, wherein said recommendation engine is adapted to calculate a probability a Cdriver will be e-hailed if standing a given location.
 18. The system according to claim 18, wherein said recommendation engine is adapted to calculate a probability the Cdriver will be street hailed at a given location or cruising a given route.
 19. The system according to claim 18, wherein said recommendation engine is also adapted to calculate a probability the Cdriver will be hailed on route to the given location, aggregate the probability of being e-hailed if standing at each given location with the the Cdriver will be hailed on route to the each given location and recommend an optimal location for the Cdriver to drive to considering both probabilities.
 20. A driving decision support system comprising: a mobile computing device including a display and an interface adapted to receive a user input indicating an operational parameter for optimization; a recommendation engine including processing circuitry adapted to generate a recommended driving action for an autonomous driving system, optimized according to the user indicated operational parameter, wherein the recommendation is at least partially based upon: (1) a location signal indicating a current location of the autonomous driving system; (2) a live traffic feed indicating current traffic conditions within an area including the current location of the autonomous driving system; and (3) a traffic flow model for the area; and a rendering unit adapted to render upon said display a graphic representation of the recommended driving action; wherein said traffic flow model is dynamic and intermittently updated. 